


we found out we wanted to live

by renquise



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 20:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16751368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: After everything, Caleb found Caduceus sitting on one of the quieter docks, staring out to sea. His soft-soled boots were arranged off to the side, his bare feet hanging off the side of the dock.





	we found out we wanted to live

**Author's Note:**

> I’m fascinated by the dynamic between Caduceus and Caleb, even as I’m still trying to figure Caduceus out?? So please have a tiny interlude which will definitely not be jossed because they’re definitely going to have a tiny moment of quiet down time on pirate island after things go down ha ha ha oh boy.

After everything, Caleb found Caduceus sitting on one of the quieter docks, staring out to sea. His soft-soled boots were arranged off to the side, his bare feet hanging off the side of the dock. 

“No luck with the bookshop hunt?” Caduceus said, his ears flicking towards him in greeting.

“Ja, no. Turns out that murderous pirate island has a limited selection of non-nautical literature, surprisingly.” 

Caduceus huffed out a laugh and nodded at the book tucked under his arm. “I see you managed to find something, though.”

“Ah, well, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t omnivorous enough to be willing to read about rigging. It was Jester’s finding, though.” 

She had come back from her afternoon exploration with a book tucked under her arm, her eyes sparkling as she said, you have to give it to me afterwards, Caleb, and don’t spoil the ending for me. This particular edition of _The Elements and Practice of Rigging And Seamanship_ appeared to have a self-published appendix by a bored deckhand with a skill for tasteful nautical-themed smut. It was very sweet.

Caleb sat and pulled his boots off as well. Frumpkin jumped off his shoulders, flopping on his side to wriggle against the worn sun-warm dock.

It was a relief to have a few moments to breathe. They weren’t out of this clusterfuck yet, not by a long shot, but enough that he had had a few moments to turn Frumpkin back into a cat. He was glad to find his sleek fur against his palms once again. 

“Not much of a reader myself, I’m afraid,” Caduceus rumbled, still looking out to sea. “Something on your mind?”

“It’s been an eventful day. An eventful few weeks, really.”

“That it has.”

A mild understatement. It was five thirty-four in the afternoon, and the sun was starting to droop in the sky, sending a bright line across the deadly, endless water. It was almost hard to grasp that twelve hours ago, they had been locked in a standoff with a pirate captain cultist. 

Caduceus’s ears were drooping, and Caleb could recognize fatigue in the sloped line of his shoulders. 

“Mind if I close my eyes for a bit? I’m awful tired. You must be as well,” Caduceus said. 

It was not the first time that Caduceus had excused himself to rest during the day. Caleb wondered if it was an (understandable) response to a small release of tension, or if an ailment of some kind sapped Caduceus’s energy. It would be useful to know for the safety of the group. Looking at Caduceus now, it seemed as though there was less carefully-smothered anxiety under the placid surface of his calm. But Caleb was always terrible at discerning these things.

Caleb rubbed his fingers into his eye sockets, the blurry after-image of the sun on the water casting against his eyelids. He's been awake for thirty hours and three and a half minutes—nothing compared to other sleepless periods in the past. He was still too keyed-up to sleep, anyway. 

“I am tired, it’s true, but go ahead, Herr Clay. The others will be back soon, and I then will gladly join you. I am not sure that I feel comfortable enough yet on murderous pirate island to leave us completely unguarded.” 

Caduceus looked at him. As always, there was something unnervingly appraising about his gaze. “I appreciate it, Mr. Caleb.”

Caduceus didn’t immediately lay down, though, his head craning sea-ward as though he had been caught by the sight of something at the horizon. There was nothing that Caleb could see, save for a haze blurring the line between sea and the sky. 

For all his comforts, Frumpkin was a fey creature, unknowable in ways that Caleb was familiar with, in a way that he could perhaps begin to grasp through his studies of the arcane. Caduceus—Caduceus was unknowable in a different way. 

Caleb still didn’t understand him, didn't understand the way he could so easily offer up his trust. Caleb hadn’t been useful to Caduceus, not particularly—if anything, he had pulled Caduceus away from his graveyard into peril for his own use, and had not given much of anything back in return.

Caleb wondered, not for the first time, what he had said that sounded convincing enough to bring him along. If Caduceus could have been comfortable in his graveyard for longer, or if necessity had pushed him into the unfortunate fold of their bunch. The man didn’t act like he was on a time limit, but perhaps there was something creeping at his heels, something slow and inexorable.

The wide shell of Caduceus’s ear flicked towards the sea breeze. When he turned away, the thin skin glowed with the sunlight casting through, picking out the tracings of fine blood vessels.

Caleb drew his hand back, finding himself already halfway reaching out to touch.

Caduceus raised his eyebrows at him.

“I–may I?” 

Caduceus blinked at him slowly, then bent his head, tucking the bright fall of his hair back behind his ear. Caleb ran the pads of his fingers over the tip of his ear. It was velvety, soft with very fine pink fur. Almost like one of Frumpkin’s ears. Caleb stroked his finger along the direction of the hair.

“Oh, that’s nice.” Caduceus hummed. 

His head tipped forward, exposing the nape of his neck. The knobs of his spine were prominent through his grey, velvety skin, and Caleb wondered how long he was in that graveyard alone. 

He curled his fingers, and Caduceus let out a deep hum. 

Caleb snatched his hand back. It would not do to treat this man like he did Frumpkin, soothing his nerves with the smoothness of fur under his fingers. 

“I, ah, apologize—”

Caduceus blinked at him. “Wasn’t complaining, myself. It’s nice. You’ve got good hands, Mr. Caleb.” 

“That so?”

“Mm.”

One of Caduceus’s eyes creeped open. Caleb thought of the long-lashed cows that the neighboring farmer had kept, of the sound of their lowing as they called for their calves across the field and their slow, deliberate manner as they passed through the long summer grass. But Caduceus’s thick lashes yielded sharp pink instead of placid brown, strange and unknown, for all that it pulled at familiarity. 

Astrid had always teased him about his taste for the strange. 

“It’s all right to appreciate nice things, isn’t it? To let yourself have nice things. World’s full enough of terribleness that you have to appreciate them before they wither,” Caduceus said.

It seemed absurd that Caleb could be taken off-guard by someone who was so slow and deliberate with his words.

Caleb patted Caduceus’s shoulder. It seemed like a safe, normal enough gesture.

“Take your rest. I’m not so tapped that I can’t defend us against dock spiders until the others arrive.” 

Caduceus let out a huffing laugh and settled back against the warm wood of the dock, his hands clasped over his chest like a body laid to rest. Caleb nudged Frumpkin to lie on his chest. Caduceus’s hands tilted up to curve around him.


End file.
